CHAPTER IV - NICOLE

As Nicole rushed out of the pantry, guilt overtook her all at once. How could she be entertaining such thoughts about that young man. He was probably just being friendly and thought nothing of her. Besides, he'd probably forgotten her name the moment she stepped out of the room.

Was she really so desperate to put color back into her life that she would stoop to this level? How could she? She's obviously older than Jared and he was surely just being kind.

Jared. Why did he have to have that name? It was a name that she never, ever wanted to utter again. Not during her lifetime. Or even after it for that matter. That name brought too much pain to her. So many memories, sweet and devastating memories, were attached to that name. And she rather preferred to believe that she'd already expunged all that unpleasantness from her system.

She surmised that maybe that's why she was feeling this way. It wasn't because of the young man himself, it was because he bore the name of the one person that almost destroyed her. But then again, she didn't know his name until before they said goodbye. And she'd already felt the first stirrings of interest long before that. Nicole sighed and with a toss of her head continued walking to her car.

Compose yourself, Nicole! You're no longer a schoolgirl. Shame on you! She chided herself. Her hands shook as she dug inside her tote, her car keys apparently had decided to avoid her searching fingers. Relief washed over her when she finally located the errant item. She was just pulling out of the basement garage when her phone started ringing. The personalized ringtone told her that it was Andrew. Luckily, in spite of her baffled state she still had the presence of mind to put the phone on its cradle. She pushed the answer button and greeted her husband in the most normal tone she could muster.

"Hey, Hon!"

"Hi, Hon! Where are you? You didn't answer my text."

"Yeah, I'm sorry I was just rushing out of the gym when I got it. Where are you?"

"I'm at the bistro. Thought you'd like to have some lengua tonight."

"What about Adrian? Isn't he with you?"

"I called home and he said some of his friends are there, finishing up a project. I just told Manang Fely to cook whatever the kids would like to have."

"Oh, alright. I'll be there in about ten minutes."

"Okay, Hon. I'll send Fred home. Mind if I hitch a ride with you later on?"

"Of course I don't mind. Besides how could I refuse such a charming man?"

She heard her husband chuckle at the other end. He obviously was in a good mood tonight. Which was great; she needed a bit of diversion and a ton of cheering up this evening. She just wished Andrew would not be distracted (again) by any business calls during dinner. She always hated that.

Belatedly, she realized that she hadn't changed from her gym clothes. And Andrew would surely ask why. Berating herself for the nth time that day, she made a quick right turn into the nearest gasoline station and rushed to the ladies' room to change. She did not need Andrew grilling her about something she'd rather not talk about. Not right now, anyway. Not when two Jareds were wreaking havoc on her sanity.

Nicole met Andrew on the most tragic night of her life. It was the night when her boyfriend of two years left her without a word.

Jared belonged to the Tantoco clan, an old, moneyed family and his parents had never approved of his relationship with Nicole, she being the only child of two humble, public-school teachers. From the start, they had made their disapproval apparent, but Nicole foolishly shrugged it off, convincing herself that Jared would stand up for her. Especially now that she was pregnant.

Fate had other plans for her, however, for on the night that she was about to tell Jared of her condition she received a phone call from one of her friends asking her if she knew that Jared had already left for the US. She never called Jared at home but sheer panic gave her the courage to do so. And as fate would have it, the person who answered her call turned out to be his mother. She informed Nicole, rather callously, that Jared had indeed left for the US, for good. Period. No explanations. No excuses. Nothing, except the cold, hard fact that he had left her without any qualms.

Nicole would've accepted it just like that, but she wanted to give Jared the benefit of the doubt and she could not, for the life of her, believe that Jared would abandon her just like that. She convinced herself that his parents were probably hiding him from her, locking him inside their fortress-like home in one of the most exclusive subdivisions in Makati. She would not be able to rest until she had seen him, spoken to him, face-to-face, so in spite of the late hour she decided to go to the Tantoco house and find out the truth for herself.

She couldn't tell how she'd been able to bluff her way through the tight security of their super-exclusive village but her taxi was miraculously waved through and as soon as the driver had left her in front of the Tantoco house she mustered whatever courage she had left and started pushing the doorbell. She must've pushed that blasted button a hundred times but no one came to even drive her away. Whoever was inside chose to ignore her completely.

Frustration finally gave way to fury and soon she was banging on the door, screaming Jared's name until her throat was dry. The ruckus she'd created obviously disturbed the other nearby residents because the next thing she knew was getting dragged from the Tantoco driveway by two burly security guards. They unceremoniously dumped her inside the roving van of the subdivision's security detail and upon reaching the main gate, pushed her rather roughly out of it and into the pouring rain.

Everything came crashing down on her as soon as she realized that Jared had really deserted her, without a word, without even saying goodbye. Without knowing about the child growing within her. And as she stood there, on that cold, lonely road to nowhere, she felt her world turn black as she started to collapse, her exhausted mind and body finally giving in to the anguish that had been tearing her heart apart.

The next time she regained consciousness, she found herself looking into a pair of soft, gentle eyes smiling down on her. She later learned that his name was Andrew Villavicencio, the man who found her in the rain and rescued her. She did not know then that he would eventually do more than rescue her from the rain, he would rescue her from herself as well.